


things truly terrible

by darcylindbergh



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, Love songs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 19:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: Crowley has said some truly terrible things over the years, but this was the worst.





	things truly terrible

“Don’t you know any, you know… _nice_  songs?”

“Nice?” Crowley frowned. “What, you don’t like my songs?”

Aziraphale grimaced, feeling a little caught out, like he’d fallen a bit short of the joke. Better to laugh it off, wasn’t it? But he soldiered on with his complaint nonetheless. “They’re just a bit end-of-the-worldy, don’t you think? Would really prefer to just be shot of all that.”

Crowley poked him in the armpit. “Singing about it isn’t going to make it happen all over again,” he pointed out.

“You don’t know that,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Besides, I’m a bit more, well, puppies and flowers, really,” he added, which was an outright lie, “and I don’t know that your lullaby really suits the mood.”

Crowley, apparently satisfied enough that Aziraphale had lied that he didn’t feel the need to comment on it, grinned. He trailed a fingertip down Aziraphale’s forearm instead. “Oh? What would—” here he winked heavily— “ _suit_  the  _mood_?”

If Aziraphale were the blushing type—which he was—he would have blushed something fierce—which he did. “I don’t mean nice as in rainbows and butterflies. _Or_ as in whatever tawdry thing you have in mind. I just mean  _nice_. As in being here. With you. You and me, being here like this.”

He would have liked to have sung an example, but his repertoire ran strongly toward boring Latin chants and off-key opera, and anyway. It didn’t do to expose too much of one’s hand to a demon, even if one were in bed with him. He had exposed rather enough of himself tonight already.

Well, he’d exposed _all_ of himself, but only in the strictest sense of the thing. Entirely different concept.

“You don’t mean like twinkle-twinkle-little-star, I expect,” Crowley said after a moment or two.

“You know what, forget it,” Aziraphale answered, cutting him off. “Sing your demon lullaby. We’ll just say it’s nostalgic.”

“It _is_ nostalgic for some of us. Oh, when I was but a wee beastie,” he sighed dramatically.

“Lucifer teach you that one himself, did he?”

“You’re just jealous that we have all the best songwriters.”

“Well, _we_ have the best choreographers,” Aziraphale shot back, and then, realising that Crowley was teasing him, he shut his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. He was, after all, an angel, not a bloody saint.

It was quiet for a moment.

Only for a moment, though. He was, after all, in bed with _Crowley,_ who was good at a great many things, but not at shutting up.

There was a rustle. And another rustle, and the distinct sound of skin sliding over skin, the bed dipping under Crowley’s weight as he rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow. Aziraphale could feel Crowley leaning over him, watching him for a moment. And then Crowley began to hum.

It was not a lullaby. It was, in fact, disarmingly jaunty.

“Let’s see,” Crowley said eventually, interrupting himself. His foot tapped against the mattress, keeping the time of the music even though he’d stopped humming. He leaned in a little closer, so close his breath brushed across Aziraphale’s ear. Aziraphale kept his eyes firmly shut. “A song for being here with you and me. How about this one.”

And then, quietly, Crowley began to sing.

“Ooh, you make me live!” He wiggled his hips in time to the beat, some ridiculous move reminiscent of Elvis Presley. “Whatever this world can give to me—it’s you, you’re all I see—” this Crowley punctuated with a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek— “ooh, you make me live, now angel, ooh you make me live.”

Aziraphale did not, as a rule, especially need to breathe. It was a good thing, too, because just then Crowley sang, “You’re the best friend, that I’ve ever had,” and Aziraphale entirely forgot how to do it.

If Crowley noticed, he didn’t say so. “I’ve been with you such a long time,” he kept on instead, kissing Aziraphale’s other cheek, and for goodness’ sake, the words kept on coming. “You’re my sunshine,” a kiss to his forehead, “and I want you to know,” to his chin, “my feelings are true,” and then, abruptly, Crowley stopped.

“Look at me,” he whispered, instead of singing the next line.

Aziraphale swallowed. “No,” he said stubbornly. “I’m afraid of whatever horrible thing you’re about to say.”

Crowley laughed, soft and affectionate, which made Aziraphale shut his eyes even tighter. “Angel,” he said, nudging his nose alongside Aziraphale’s, and honestly, who gave him a nose, who gave him the  _right_ , “Aziraphale. It’s going to be truly terrible, I know, but I’m half out of my mind as well and I need you to look so I can say it. So come on, now. Look at me.”

He was not allowed to sound like that, Aziraphale decided, because when Crowley sounded like that, Aziraphale had to do exactly what he did not want to do.

He looked.

Crowley was right there, looking down at Aziraphale with a quirk to the corner of his mouth. His yellow eyes, difficult to read at the best of times, were positively baffling just then—uncharacteristically serious, verging on tender.

“I really love you,” Crowley said softly, soberly. No joking, no punchlines. “You’re my best friend.”

There was a pause. An endless, deafening pause.

“That,” Aziraphale declared, a little tremulously, when he finally gathered up the pieces of himself again, “was gut-wrenching. Of all the horrible things you’ve ever said to me, that was the worst.”

Crowley smiled— _actually_ smiled, not grinned, not smirked, just smiled. “That bad, was it?”

“Awful,” Aziraphale confirmed. “Say it again.”

It sounded different through Crowley’s mouth this time, now that he had a smile on. “I really do love you.”

Well.

Aziraphale had rather thought that preventing the apocalypse would have prepared one for just about any surprise, and he had been quite wrong. It was less like missing the last step at the bottom of the stairs and more like missing the last branch on the tree of knowledge and falling arse-over-end into the entire range of human possibility.

“Christ,” he swore softly.

“Really bad then,” Crowley noted, utterly pleased with himself, and then he began singing again. “Ooh, you make me live—”

“Oh, shut up,” Aziraphale said, the words punching out of him in a fond exasperation, all singing, helpless joy and genuine, smooth-edged aggravation, because Crowley _would,_ wouldn’t he? And wasn’t that the beauty of him? “I love you too.”

Crowley did, astonishingly, shut up. His smile grew, almost as if he were no longer in control of it, which was immensely satisfying.

“Now,” Aziraphale went on, feeling a little drunk on Crowley’s expression, “you can keep singing about it, if you like.  _Or_  you could _do_ something about it.”

Crowley actually barked out a little laugh. “I’m really more the doing type,” he said, and when he kissed Aziraphale this time, Aziraphale could feel the smile still on his mouth.

 _Now that_ , Aziraphale thought, _is worth saving the world for,_ and he kissed Crowley back, and he kissed Crowley again, and again, and again, and somewhere in the flat a radio kicked on, and Crowley’s voice projected through it, static-y and soft, singing with a laugh that was nearly a whisper:  _Ooh, you’re my best friend_.

 *

**Author's Note:**

> [Inspired by](https://ew.com/tv/2019/04/14/exclusive-good-omens-clip-introduces-antichrist/).  
> [Originally posted](http://watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com/post/184194384314/dont-you-know-any-you-knownice).  
> Find me on Tumblr @ [forineffablereasons](http://forineffablereasons.tumblr.com) or on my main @ [watsonshoneybee](http://watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com)!


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